Mapping Antibody:Antigen Interactions by Mass Spectrometry and Bioinformatics

Characterization of the antigen/antibody complex is an important tool in the rational design of antibody-based therapeutics. This can be achieved using several methods. Conventional methods for mapping an antibody-binding region on an antigen rely on synthetic polypeptide libraries, which limit the identification of epitopes to continuous amino acid sequences (1 ). These techniques preclude the characterization of conformational epitopes, and subsequently, a major category of antibody/antigen interactions.